The One Tweet From Skype That Shocked The World This Morning
Seems like Skype has started 2014 with a security issue of its own.
By Sadho Ram — 02 Jan 2014, 01:19 PM — Updated almost 11 years ago
Earlier today, a person (or a few people) breached Skype’s security and hacked its Twitter account, Facebook page, and blog
The group claiming responsibility is the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA). Its message: end spying on the public.
The hacking group took over the account, posting several tweets in what appears to be a classic case of phishing
The most recent fake tweet (now deleted by Skype) advised Skype’s three million followers to avoid Microsoft’s email services.
theverge.com
"Don't use Microsoft emails(hotmail,outlook), they are monitoring your accounts and selling the data to the governments. More details soon #SEA."
rt.com
SEA continued to attack Microsoft via its twitter account posting, “You can thank Microsoft for monitoring your accounts/emails using these details.”
Skype has now fully regained control and deleted the false tweets from the compromised social media channels. Its blog is being automatically redirected to Skype’s homepage.
“We recently became aware of a targeted cyber-attack that led to access to Skype’s social media properties, but these credentials were quickly reset. No user information was compromised,” a Skype spokesman responded to TheNextWeb query.
ubergizmo.com
Skype also tweeted that no accounts of its other users had been compromised.
Since SEA’s inception in 2011, the organization has denied any association with the Syrian government. They claim to be self-motivated patriotic supporters of the government, but are not acting on its behalf.
In 2013, SEA claimed responsibility for hacking a number of Western media outlets including the New York Times, BBC’s Weather Twitter page and the Financial Times.
cnet.comArguably, their biggest success was the penetration of the Associated Press twitter account that posted President Barack Obama had been injured in a White House attack.
